Saturday, May 03, 2008
Comic Art
We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program...
...to bring you a review of the latest comic book movie "Iron Man," but first previews. The movie is fronted by a preview of "The Dark Knight" which I found disappointing. Heath Ledger's interpretation of The Joker appears evil but not maniacal. Of course, it is just a trailer, and the characterization could be fuller in the film. That said, the Joker absent his madness is an evil too evil to contemplate and would render the film just ugly. Check this one out before taking the kids. Notably absent from the Iron Man trailers is this summer's Hulk film in which Iron Man is said to have a cameo appearance. The previews of the Hulk available on the Internet look great, but I think they are trying to avoid the taint of the Ang Lee version - that is sad. The Lee version was not THAT bad.The most exciting preview news from the Iron Man was the presence of a poster for this film in the lobby. Yummy!
Now, on to Iron Man - FUN! This is a great popcorn film. From my perspective there are weaknesses in the character (Tony Stark is insufficiently motivated for the commitment it takes to pick up the superhero mantle, but that has been true for the character since his inception) and they carry into the film, but not distractingly so.
This film also suffers from too much character establishment, and not enough action, but that appears to be a pattern emerging as Marvel rolls out films with its second tier characters. Limit the budget on the first film, if it plays, put the money into the second, ala the FF. This is a great first film and should do well in leading to a second.
This film captures many "versions" of the Iron Man and has all the requisite allusions to the comics and insider's nods and jokes. The film also has a great sense of humor as captured by Robert Downey, Jr.'s wisecracks and attitude. The plot is a little complex for small children. The revelation of the bad guy as the bad guy should have had an organ sting to add dramatic impact, he sort fo sneaks up on you.
But all that said, this is a highly entertaining and enjoyable film - recommended for the whole family.
And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...
HEROES AND ARTISTS - THE VISION
ed note: Apologies for the lack of artist credit in this post. I just did not have the time to dig it up, but the breadth of imagination and the quality of the art demanded I do this. The Vision is a stunning character, in all its forms.
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Friday, May 02, 2008
Eternity
Scotwise quote Chuck Colson:
But the Church is the Body of Christ on this earth, it has lasted since Christ was here and will last until His return. That does not necessarily mean we build physical structures designed to last for eternity - I have visited too many of those now reduced to the status of mere museum.
But it does mean we build people with the intent that they build people and so it passes, generation to generation. And the people from this generation will look remarkably like the people of the last and the people of the next. Something eternal may change a bit in appearance, but its essential shape will remain or it will be something less than eternal.
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When slavery to fashion invades the church, our latest ideas are yesterday's fads. We adopt the world's agenda -- just a few years too late. Many churchmen sport theological bell-bottoms.One of the things I am continually amazed about is that we seem to forget the church is something ETERNAL. We treat it like we treat everything else in our live, disposable, replaceable, temporary.
But the Church is the Body of Christ on this earth, it has lasted since Christ was here and will last until His return. That does not necessarily mean we build physical structures designed to last for eternity - I have visited too many of those now reduced to the status of mere museum.
But it does mean we build people with the intent that they build people and so it passes, generation to generation. And the people from this generation will look remarkably like the people of the last and the people of the next. Something eternal may change a bit in appearance, but its essential shape will remain or it will be something less than eternal.
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Friday Humor
Dale Garver is 90 years old. He's played golf every day since his retirement 25 years ago. One day he arrives home looking downcast.
'That's it', he tells his wife. 'I'm giving up golf. My eyesight has got so bad.... once I've hit the ball, I can't see where it went.'
His wife sympathizes, and makes him a cup of coffee.
As they sit down she says, 'Why don't you take my brother with you, and give it one more try'.
That's no good' sighs Arthur. 'Your brother's a hundred and three. He can't help'.
He may be a hundred and three, but his eyesight is perfect'.
So the next day Arthur heads off to the golf course with his brother-in-law. He tees up, swings and squints down the fairway. He turns to the brother-in-law. 'Did you see the ball?'
'Of course I did!'
'Where did it go?' says Arthur.
'I can't remember'
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'That's it', he tells his wife. 'I'm giving up golf. My eyesight has got so bad.... once I've hit the ball, I can't see where it went.'
His wife sympathizes, and makes him a cup of coffee.
As they sit down she says, 'Why don't you take my brother with you, and give it one more try'.
That's no good' sighs Arthur. 'Your brother's a hundred and three. He can't help'.
He may be a hundred and three, but his eyesight is perfect'.
So the next day Arthur heads off to the golf course with his brother-in-law. He tees up, swings and squints down the fairway. He turns to the brother-in-law. 'Did you see the ball?'
'Of course I did!'
'Where did it go?' says Arthur.
'I can't remember'
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Thursday, May 01, 2008
No Option
Milt Stanley links to Eric Jones on sanctification:
The quick and short answer is probably "evangelicalism," but that is simplistic, not just to the whole of evangelicalism and as much symptom as root cause. One could discuss the socio-economic factors that are uniquely American and as American economic power has taken root internationally have spread internationally. And yet, American has many good, decent, sanctified people, as does the rest fot he world. It is possible to be sanctified in America, so this may be a contributing factor, but it is not the root cause.
The answer, or course, is simple to say, but so hard to overcome - SIN. Think about it for a minute. Why should the devil beat the church entirely when he can simply corrupt it - make people think they are within God's intention when they are really falling well short of the mark and therefore in the devil's intentions instead of God's.
The key thing that must happen is that we must overcome the illusion that saying the sinner's prayer is enough. We must lift the veil from our eyes they makes us see things as the devil wants them instead of how God wants them. We have to quit fooling ourselves.
This is why I harp on confession so often on this blog. Confession does not have to be some specific list of "cries" committed. Nay, confession should be the simply acknowledgement that we are blinded to what is truly right. Confession should be the straightforward admission that we, even with our best intention, cannot possible to this thing (life!) correctly, and that we need God to remove the veil, give us vision and give us strength to do it right.
Anytime we think we have this whole thing figured out we are wrong. The very key is to know that one thing and admit it - constantly.
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Sanctification is an often overlooked aspect of the Christian life. Much focus is given to our justification while our sanctification is considered optional.He is right and my question is "Why?" What has driven us, what has driven the church, to the place where we deal in the simple "saved" formula?
“This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” - 1 Thessalonians 4:3
Sanctification is the progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.” It is the process of making us like Christ. This process involves the cooperation of both God and man with each playing a distinct and very active role.
The quick and short answer is probably "evangelicalism," but that is simplistic, not just to the whole of evangelicalism and as much symptom as root cause. One could discuss the socio-economic factors that are uniquely American and as American economic power has taken root internationally have spread internationally. And yet, American has many good, decent, sanctified people, as does the rest fot he world. It is possible to be sanctified in America, so this may be a contributing factor, but it is not the root cause.
The answer, or course, is simple to say, but so hard to overcome - SIN. Think about it for a minute. Why should the devil beat the church entirely when he can simply corrupt it - make people think they are within God's intention when they are really falling well short of the mark and therefore in the devil's intentions instead of God's.
The key thing that must happen is that we must overcome the illusion that saying the sinner's prayer is enough. We must lift the veil from our eyes they makes us see things as the devil wants them instead of how God wants them. We have to quit fooling ourselves.
This is why I harp on confession so often on this blog. Confession does not have to be some specific list of "cries" committed. Nay, confession should be the simply acknowledgement that we are blinded to what is truly right. Confession should be the straightforward admission that we, even with our best intention, cannot possible to this thing (life!) correctly, and that we need God to remove the veil, give us vision and give us strength to do it right.
Anytime we think we have this whole thing figured out we are wrong. The very key is to know that one thing and admit it - constantly.
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Illuminated Scripture
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me
The NYTimes looks at "ecopsychology."
The essential question from my perspective is what have we, as the church, done wrong that allows this sort of almost direct substitution of the natural for the supernatural? Of course, many would talk about secularization and rationalism, and scientism, but all those things are still the substitutes, not the cause of the substitution.
Simply put, these things are easily substitutable because the church has not done a good job of being the actual church. we have been insufficiently distinct from these substitutes - we have failed to exhibit the characteristics that would make the truth of our claims, in comparison to these others, apparent. Some of it is having adopted these various forms - faith is not happiness. Being a Christian radically affects psychotherapy, but being a Christian is far more than finding metal and emotional health. We have largely reduced our faith to an intellectual/emotional construct instead, when it is a literal remaking of our entire being on every conceivable, and inconceivable, level.
I am not sure these images adequately communicate how different real gold appears from its, even well-done, substitutes. There is a unique character to the stuff that is recognizable on site. Even when something is covered not just in gold-colored paint, but in actual gold foil, it is very different than the solid stuff itself. Working in the mining industry as I did some years ago, I have seen the raw stuff come from the ground - it is undeniable and truly distinct.
Christ did not die and was not resurrected so that we could be painted with gold paint, or covered with gold foil. Christ came to mine the gold out of us - to make us into what we are. You see, when we are but painted gold it is too easy to paint other colors. But no one would ever dream of actually painting something that is gold - in fact, paint cannot stick to a gold surface, it is too chemically inert.
The road to becoming gold instead of simply trying to paint ourselves gold begins on our knees, in confession. Rough start to a wonderful journey.
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SOME months ago, Catherine McLendon and her husband, Martin, decided to talk to a psychologist. The couple have a blended family with three adolescent sons, and they wanted guidance in easing some typical adjustment problems.If you need proof that the environmental movement has become a religion, do you really need to look further? Read that last paragraph, now, substitute "spend more time in prayer and devotion" for "spend more time outdoors," and some seminaries now have entire psychology departments dedicated to exploring how upbringing and family background affects approach to faith. This does not just hint at religion, this borrows its contours in toto.
But a few sessions in, Ms. McLendon, a floral designer, and Mr. McLendon, a bus driver, realized their worries extended beyond the demands of work, school and extracurricular sports.
Ms. McLendon was troubled by the family’s consumption habits, while Mr. McLendon worried about the disappearance of green space. In therapy, their psychologist, Sandy Shulmire, began providing the family with practical instructions for reducing anxiety, and their carbon footprint.
Dr. Shulmire is a practitioner of ecopsychology, a new form of therapy that is starting to find a following in this green-minded corner of the United States. Like traditional therapy, ecopsychology examines personal interactions and family systems, while also encouraging patients to develop a relationship to nature.
Therapists like Dr. Shulmire use several techniques, from encouraging patients besieged by multitasking to spend more time outdoors to exploring how their upbringing and family background influence their approach to the natural world.
The essential question from my perspective is what have we, as the church, done wrong that allows this sort of almost direct substitution of the natural for the supernatural? Of course, many would talk about secularization and rationalism, and scientism, but all those things are still the substitutes, not the cause of the substitution.
Simply put, these things are easily substitutable because the church has not done a good job of being the actual church. we have been insufficiently distinct from these substitutes - we have failed to exhibit the characteristics that would make the truth of our claims, in comparison to these others, apparent. Some of it is having adopted these various forms - faith is not happiness. Being a Christian radically affects psychotherapy, but being a Christian is far more than finding metal and emotional health. We have largely reduced our faith to an intellectual/emotional construct instead, when it is a literal remaking of our entire being on every conceivable, and inconceivable, level.
I am not sure these images adequately communicate how different real gold appears from its, even well-done, substitutes. There is a unique character to the stuff that is recognizable on site. Even when something is covered not just in gold-colored paint, but in actual gold foil, it is very different than the solid stuff itself. Working in the mining industry as I did some years ago, I have seen the raw stuff come from the ground - it is undeniable and truly distinct.Christ did not die and was not resurrected so that we could be painted with gold paint, or covered with gold foil. Christ came to mine the gold out of us - to make us into what we are. You see, when we are but painted gold it is too easy to paint other colors. But no one would ever dream of actually painting something that is gold - in fact, paint cannot stick to a gold surface, it is too chemically inert.
The road to becoming gold instead of simply trying to paint ourselves gold begins on our knees, in confession. Rough start to a wonderful journey.
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Becasue It Is KEWL!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Real Change
Ther is a new meme growing out there. I first encountered it as Justin Taylor linked to a post by Tullian Tchividjian:
Well, we are in an election cycle, and it is an election cycle in which we evangelical Christians of all stripes find our political clout diminished. Could it be we are "running home to mama" after we have taken a bit of a beating out there in the "real world?" Of course, nothing like this is EVER that simple, but I am betting it is a contributory factor.
Why do we do this to ourselves? It seems to happen with ever generation. We have to learn the same lessons over and over again.
If there is a change we need to make in the church, perhaps it is to restore the wisdom of age. Real progress could be made if the hard learned lessons of one generation were made available to the next in a way that permitted progress instead of relearning. When I was in school I did not have to discover acid-base chemistry for myself, it was taught to me so that I could use it to advance science to the next level.
In the church sometimes it seems like all we ever do is teach people how to make the same mistakes we made.
Where would I start? How about a little more self-revelation on the part of church leadership. Hmmmmm....there's a concept, confession as pedagogic tool. And here we always thought confession was about self-negation somehow. Funny how God is ALWAYS smarter than we are.
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“The world”, says Richard John Neuhaus, “desperately needs the Church to be the Church”, not to do church differently. The difference that people are longing for, in other words, is a difference in being, not doing. So while many church “strategists” are locating reformation and revival in structural renovation, we must remember that the deepest needs of the Church today are spiritual, not structural. And yet, we are told that the Church’s cultural relevance depends ultimately on its ability to keep up with the changing structures, on its ability to do church differently.Then, a week or two later, Al Mohler:
I have good news for all of us who are becoming weary of this type of pressure: We don’t have to keep up the way we think we do; the world doesn’t want us to! So how do we compete? We don’t! We must come to see that God has established His Church as an “alternative society”, not to compete with this world, but rather to offer a home to those who realize the homelessness of life in this world without Him. It is the calling and the privilege of the Church to be “against the world for the world”. We should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter cultural, most distinctively different from the world.
The truths of God's Word reveal the Gospel of spiritual transformation, and the proclamation of the truths of God's Word is the only means available to us of cultural transformation. From beginning to end, it is all in God's hands. We are called to faithful witness and compassionate ministry. In the context of post-Christian America, our task is to preach the Gospel and to proclaim the truths of God's Word. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, the Gospel is foolishness to those seeking wisdom and a scandal to those looking for power. To the redeemed, however, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Here is found the only genuine transformation. Therein is found our charge.This is actually a very old meme resurfacing - I have talked about it constantly on this blog for years now. My question is, "Why is it resurfacing now?"
Well, we are in an election cycle, and it is an election cycle in which we evangelical Christians of all stripes find our political clout diminished. Could it be we are "running home to mama" after we have taken a bit of a beating out there in the "real world?" Of course, nothing like this is EVER that simple, but I am betting it is a contributory factor.
Why do we do this to ourselves? It seems to happen with ever generation. We have to learn the same lessons over and over again.
If there is a change we need to make in the church, perhaps it is to restore the wisdom of age. Real progress could be made if the hard learned lessons of one generation were made available to the next in a way that permitted progress instead of relearning. When I was in school I did not have to discover acid-base chemistry for myself, it was taught to me so that I could use it to advance science to the next level.
In the church sometimes it seems like all we ever do is teach people how to make the same mistakes we made.
Where would I start? How about a little more self-revelation on the part of church leadership. Hmmmmm....there's a concept, confession as pedagogic tool. And here we always thought confession was about self-negation somehow. Funny how God is ALWAYS smarter than we are.
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Kitty Kartoons
Monday, April 28, 2008
Talk About Outside The Box
Out of Ur blog looks ta a book called "Pagan Christianity" Doesn't like it much.
I think what we have here is a pretty good diagnosis, but an attempt to cure the illness by killing the patient. The institutions of our faith, inclusive of the professional clergy are indeed warped, in large part, into something that is decidedly unGodly and ugly. But that does not change the fact that while they are indeed at variance with the operations of the first century church, they have evolved with good reason and in a fashion that is in line with scripture. They, like most everything else, have been tainted by sin.
The key question is what do we do about this. Just a few comments in no particular order. For one thing, the corruption of the institutions is as much a fact of sin in the congregation as it is sin in the clergy. The congregants are called to keep the clergy accountable. The church has indeed devolved into a two-tiered class structure, but that is as much a product of laziness amongst the pews as it is lordliness in the pulpit.
Secondly, the Reformers were indeed reformers, not revolutionaries. Luther, Calvin, and the rest never wanted to break away from the mother church, they just wanted to fix her. They had separateness thrust upon them. That indeed can and does happen often today, but never separate willfully.
The best way to fix this problem is to become the right kind of clergy.
Think about it.
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I appreciate it when a writer shows all his cards at the beginning of a book so I don't have to guess at his presuppositions. Frank Viola does just that in the opening line of his newly re-released Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (Barna, 2008). He starts like this: "Not long after I left the institutional church to begin gathering with Christians in New Testament fashion…" You can imagine the tone of the pages that follow.I am no fan of the institutional church, but I will not go so far as to call it "pagan." I will; however, call it corrupt. Not having read this book, everything I say from this point forward must be understood to not be addressing the book or its arguments. However, the intellectual path described by the reviewer is one that I have traveled for the last 30 years, so I feel that I am capable of entering this discussion.
Viola argues in his preface that the "practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression" of believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit that were "solidly grounded in timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament." Regrettably, he maintains, most practices of contemporary churches—including everything from having a professional pastor to meeting in a church building—are at odds with New Testament teachings.
[...]
As angry and disillusioned as I was about institutional church six years ago, I would have enthusiastically digested Pagan Christianity in 2002 had it made waves big enough to reach me in Arkansas. With Barna's help, the splash it makes in 2008 may be considerably larger. Add to the new endorsement the growing unease with institutions in general, and Pagan Christianity, with its angst and pseudo-academic format, may just find a market this time around. I’m no longer sure that's a good thing.
I think what we have here is a pretty good diagnosis, but an attempt to cure the illness by killing the patient. The institutions of our faith, inclusive of the professional clergy are indeed warped, in large part, into something that is decidedly unGodly and ugly. But that does not change the fact that while they are indeed at variance with the operations of the first century church, they have evolved with good reason and in a fashion that is in line with scripture. They, like most everything else, have been tainted by sin.
The key question is what do we do about this. Just a few comments in no particular order. For one thing, the corruption of the institutions is as much a fact of sin in the congregation as it is sin in the clergy. The congregants are called to keep the clergy accountable. The church has indeed devolved into a two-tiered class structure, but that is as much a product of laziness amongst the pews as it is lordliness in the pulpit.
Secondly, the Reformers were indeed reformers, not revolutionaries. Luther, Calvin, and the rest never wanted to break away from the mother church, they just wanted to fix her. They had separateness thrust upon them. That indeed can and does happen often today, but never separate willfully.
The best way to fix this problem is to become the right kind of clergy.
Think about it.
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sermons and Lessons
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
William Connor Magee, Archbishop of York, was born at Cork in 1821. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was ordained in 1844. His first important charge was the Octagon Chapel at Bath in 1850. In 1864 he was made dean of Cork, and in 1868, Bishop of Peter-borough. In 1891 he was appointed to succeed Dr. William Thomson, as Archbishop of York.
Dr. Magee was pronounced by Canon Liddon the greatest preacher of his day. His speech in the House of Lords in 1869 against Irish Disestablishment was said by the highest authorities, as quoted by Lord Salisbury, to be the finest speech ever delivered, in either house of Parliament, by any man then living. His oratory was characterized by clearness and terseness of expression, while his full¬toned voice was capable of sounding every gradation of feeling. He died in 1891, three months after his enthronization in York Minster.
Lord save us: we perish… Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. - Matt. 8:25, 26.
The story of this miracle reveals to us Christ entering into peril together with His Church. It records for us her faith and her prayer. It reveals to us His presence and His power. That faith has been her faith, that prayer has been her prayer, from that hour until now. In all the long perilous voyage of the Church from that hour, never has she unlearned yet her first prayer; never has she become entirely unconscious of her Lord. Sometimes with a great and a fearless faith that defied the most terrible tempests, sometimes with a little and a timid faith, that shrank from the first ripple upon the deep, but ever with her real faith have Christ’s Church and Christ’s disciples turned in the hour of their tribulation to seek their Lord. And never has that prayer been said in vain. Never from the Church at large, or from the solitary disciple in his terror, has that prayer gone up without an answer. Never has the eye of faith sought, and sought in vain, the Savior. Ever has the praying Church or the praying disciple found the still present Christ; and we believe that it is so now. We believe that Christ our Lord is here in the midst of us now, and that our eye of faith may see Him, and our prayer of faith may reach Him. And if this be so now - if Christ’s presence be a real fact amongst us now, and our prayer have really a might to reveal that presence - then, above all things, it concerns us, that we understand the nature of that prayer, and the manner of that presence, that we understand what it is we mean, and what will come of it when we say: “Lord, save us, or we perish.”
We ask you, then, tonight, brethren, to consider these two things: the meaning of the Church’s prayer; the manner of her Lord’s presence. Now, when we use these words: “Lord, save: we perish,” we are really rehearsing two articles of our belief. We are declaring, first of all, that we believe there is a Lord - that in the visible world there is an invisible God with His overruling, and controlling, and appointing will; and, in the next place, we believe that this God is our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first of these, we Christians agree with every religion that ever has been. In the second, we differ from all other religions. When we say that above nature there is a will and a personality, we say what every religion says. Religion is nothing else than the belief in the supernatural, in something above nature, in a person, in a will; and prayer is nothing but the speech of our spirit to that will, and the submission of our will to it. Prayer is the effort of the spirit of man to rise above the visible up to the region of the invisible and the personal, there to speak out his care or his need. There can, therefore, be no prayer without this element of religion; and there can be no religion without this fact of prayer. Without it, you have philosophy, you may have sentiment; but you cannot have a real, practical, everyday religion. And, therefore, all religions have believed in a God or gods, a Lord or lords. Turk, Jew, heathen, in like case, would have said to some lord or other: “Save, or we perish.” But the Christian believes something more. He believes that his Lord has come down amongst men; that He has taken to him human flesh, and lived a human life, and died, and risen again, for his salvation. He worships not only a lord, but the incarnate Lord; and so the Church speaks her twofold faith in her great hymn from the first to Christ as God: “We praise Thee, 0 God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord’” - Thee, and none other, to be the God, and Thee to be the Lord, and Ruler, and Master of all things. You see, then, that there is something different in Christian prayer from all other prayer and worship, and that the difference consists in this: that it is distinctively and avowedly the prayer to an incarnate Christ.
Now, if there be this difference between this prayer and all other prayer, then there must be a corresponding difference in the feelings and in the practical results of such a religion; and I am about to ask you now to follow me while I endeavor to trace for you this difference between Christian prayer and all other prayer. It seems as if the story in the gospel of this miracle exactly sets out this difference - exactly shows us the distinctive nature of Christian prayer. The story, you ob¬serve, divides itself, naturally, into three parts. Them is, first of all, the voyage before the storm; there is, then, the storm; and there is, then, the miraculous stilling of the storm. Now, you observe that in each of these three parts, we have one thing in common. We have man, in some way or other, encountering, or encountered by, the outward and visible world. The third of these - the stilling of the storm - differs from the other two in this, that it is miraculous and supernatural. Now, let us, for a moment, leave out this third part. There are some, you know, who say, that we should always leave it out, and be better without it. Let us leave out, then, this third or miraculous part of the story; and let us contrast the first and the second parts. And what have we got? We have got a most remarkable contrast between the two scenes. What is it we see in the first scene? We see a man subduing nature. It was by the knowledge of the elements and the laws of nature, that man learned thus to sail upon the deep; and in that one fact you have represented for you the whole of the material progress of humanity - all the triumphs of science, all the glory and the beauty of art, all that marvelous mastery that man obtains by his inventive and creative will over the secret powers of nature, as he unlocks them one by one, and compels her to tell him her deepest mysteries - all that man has done as he has advanced from horizon to horizon of discovery, finding still new worlds to conquer, until we stand amazed at our own progress and the infinity of it, and we say of man: “What manner of being is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” Yes, there is the man the lord of nature. There is nothing supernatural there. All is natural, all is orderly. Man is lord and master. Nature is man ‘a servant; and, therefore. there seems no room, there seems no need for prayer. There is nothing, seemingly, there to be had for the asking; there is everything, seemingly, there to be had for working. Man is to be seen walking in the garden of his own planting and his own fencing; and he reaches out hands to unforbidden fruits of knowledge; and he believes that at last he shall gather even of the tree of life. He is a god unto himself, and he sees no need for prayer.
And now we turn to the second scene, and what have we there? We have the direct contrast with this scene. We have there, not man subduing nature, but nature subduing man. We have the storm in which the elements are man‘s masters and not his servants; and he that one minute before was the boasting lord of nature is its toy and its sport. The very foam upon the crest of those billows is not more helpless in the grasp of the elements than the lord and the king of them; and they toss him to and fro, as the wind drives the stubble in the autumn. This is the terrible aspect of nature. This is nature in her might, and in her majesty, and in her pitilessness, and in her capriciousness - when nature seems everything, and man, in her awful presence, dwindles and dwarfs into very nothingness - when man, in the presence of the vastness of her solitude, and the might of her storms, and the terror of her earthquakes, seems no more before her, with his little cares and his sorrows, than the wee bubbles upon the head of the cataract. This is nature as she masters man. Is it, then, any wonder that, in the early struggles of mankind with this terrible visible power of the creature, men came to worship the creature - that they ascribed to every one of these powers a divinity, that in the voice of the wind, and in the roar of the sea, and in the raging of the fire, they saw the signs of a divine presence, and they said to these elements: “Spare us,” or “Save us, or else we perish” I And so all creation became peopled with gods - cruel gods, capricious gods, vengeful gods, gods whom men bribed with blood, gods whom, even while they bribed them, they could not love, and did not believe that they loved them. This is the first and most terrible form of creature worship; this was the idolatry of the heathen. But mark this, that such a worship as this could not continue forever, could not continue long, because it is the worship of ignorance; it is the belief in the supernatural, only because it confuses the unknown with the supernatural. Ever as science advances must this faith melt away. Ever must the domain of the known push itself forward into the domain of the unknown. Ever does the man of science take one by one the gods of the man of superstition and break them upon their pedestals, and tell him this; “What you worship is no god. What you worship is no lord. It is not your lord. It is a servant of yours; and I class it in this or that rank of your servants.” So, one by one, like ghosts and phantoms in the dawning of the day - one by one, the phantoms of gods that haunted the night of the old world vanish before the dawn of knowledge. But then it is a terrible day¬light that breaks on men - a blank, dreary world in which men have no sight of the invisible, no sense of the supernatural. It is that last and most terrible aspect of nature, when she appears, not as many gods, or many wills, but as the great soulless piece of mechanism, of which we are only part - a terrible machinery in which we are, somehow or other, involved, and in the presence of which the sense of our free-will leaves us. The pith, and the manhood, and the vigor of men, and the beauty and the freedom of their life die out of them as they stand appalled before this passionless, this terrible, this awful face of a soulless world. This is the last and the most terrible form of creature worship. And mark this, that between these two aspects of nature, if you have no assured faith, there is no logical resting-place. Without the act of faith, you must take your choice between the superstition of ignorance or the atheism of knowledge.
And now we have seen these, we turn to the third portion of our story; and what is that we see there? We see, again,, in this world of men, the miraculous and the supernatural. We hear a prayer, and we see a miracle. In the face of the might of nature and the terrors of her elements there arises up a Man in answer to man’s cry - there is heard a Man’s voice, which is yet the voice of God; and it rebukes the winds and the sea, and the elements of nature own their real Lord; and immediately there is a great calm. What is it, then, that we see? We see a miracle, and a miracle that answers to prayer; we see the living spirits of living men, in the hour of their agony and their distress, appealing from nature to the God of nature; and we have recorded the answer of God to man’s prayer. The answer is, that God is Lord both of man and of nature; and we say, therefore, that the miracle, and the miracle alone, sufficiently justifies the prayer. We say that the reason why men may pray is, and can only be, that they know and believe, that there is a will which rules the visible. If you have not this belief, then believe us that all prayer, whatever men may say about it, is an unreality and a miserable mockery. To what am I to pray if I see no living God to pray to? Am I to pray to a law? Am I to pray to a system? Am I to pray to the winds, or to the waves, as men prayed of old? Am I to pray for physical blessings and deliverances? Men tell us we are not to pray, or to give thanks, concerning the rain or fruitful seasons, for that science has told us that the supernatural has no place there. Am I to pray then (for men do tell me that I may pray) only for spiritual and for moral gifts? Am I to pray only to be made wise, and good, and pure, and true, and holy? Ah! science is beginning to meet us there, too; for she is telling us, and telling us loudly, and telling us shamelessly, that here, too, there is no room, so far as she can tell, for prayer, as our mind is but a part of our body, and that our spiritual condition is a necessary result of our past history and of our present temperament - that we are what we are by virtue of birth and education, and country, and clime, and other things over which we have no control. And so the very spirit of man, all that is left of the invisible, vanishes before the approach of science. The knife of the anatomist lays bare, as he tells you, the secrets of man’s being; and he finds no soul - he finds only the gray matter of the brain and the white threads of the nerves; and this is all that is left. Then, if we are not to pray, may we at least praise? Men say that if it is a folly to pray, at least it is a wisdom to praise; and they tell us this is the sentimental theory of the modern gospel. They tell you: “You may not pray, - prayer has no place in our system, - but you may praise; you may lift up your heart in hymns of joy and gratitude to the great Father of your being; you may have festival and flower-crowned processions in honor of the Supreme Being; yes, you may in fine weather, when you are sailing over summer seas, and the pleasant summer wind is filling’ the sails of your bark, and is wafting sweet odors from the flower-crowned shores along which youth, and hope, and joy are passing - then you may lift up your hearts in thanks to the Father that gave all these, if you do not forget it. But how is it in foul weather? How is it when the sky above us darkens, and the white crests of the waves beneath us are swelling sharp and fierce, and the jagged edges of the rocks are projecting for our shipwreck, and the wild waste of the waters is yawning below us, and we tremble and shudder at their depths, and the wild wind blows our prayer back into our bosoms - is that the time to sing sentimental hymns to our great supreme Father and Giver of all good? It is a time (thank God, thank Christ, for this) when the Christian, when the disciple of Christ, may hold fast his faith and say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”; but it is not a time when the deist has breath to sing his hymns to the supreme Author of his being. No, we believe that there is a miracle that justifies, and alone justifies prayer. We know that there are those (and they are good and wise men, many of them) who contrive nice adjustments and philosophical explanations how prayer may be reconciled with universal law. We do not greatly care for these. They may be right; they may be wrong. In some future state and higher condition of our being we may know how far they are true, how far they are false; but, meanwhile, we need not be too nervously anxious to make room for almighty God to work His own will in His own world. We believe in the miracle of creation; we believe that there was once a voice that said, “Let there be light, and there was light”; we believe that at the sound of that voice the universe leapt into life; and we believe in the miracle of the Incarnation, when God took human flesh and dwelt amongst men; we believe in the miracle of the descent of the Spirit of God, when, with the miraculous sound of the rushing wind and the miraculous gleam of the fire, God once more came down to dwell amongst men; we believe in the miracles that are written for us in this Book, were they ten times as many as they are; we believe that the sea has stood on one side like a wall, and that the waters have gushed forth from the rock; we believe that bread has been rained from heaven; we believe that a touch has awakened the dead - we believe all this; and, because we believe it, we believe the voice when it says to us, “Pray”; and because we hear that voice still amongst us, and because we know it to be the same voice, we say, as we hear it, “Lord, save, or we perish.”
But still, in the last place, it may be said to us: If you do believe that there is this power of miracle amongst you still, and that it will answer to your prayer, why is it that we do not see more miracles than we do? Why is not the world filled with strange miracles every day, considering the infinite number of men‘s needs, and the infinite number of human prayers? My brethren, it does seem to me that if we were merely deists, and did not believe in Christ, it would be difficult for us to answer this objection. The spirit of man has, however (thanks be to God for it), in all ages been deeper and truer in its instincts than his mere logical power. Even the deist (and we thankfully acknowledge it), though inconsistently and illogically, yet really and truly prays. For us Christians there is not any difficulty. There is that difference in our prayer of which I spoke. To whom is it that we pray? Not merely to the invisible Lord or Creator of the past, but to the incarnate Lord of the present. We believe that Christ our Lord, to whom we pray. took flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we believe that He did so that He might work the greatest of all miracles - the salvation of the souls of men; and we believe that He wrought it by dying and by living again. We believe that He established in the world this great and miraculous law, that it is possible out of death to bring life - nay, that death is the way to life. If this be so, that by His death life was purchased for us, then He teaches us that there is another life than this, and that there is another death and a deeper death than that we fear; and He tells us, it may be, that even by dying we shall be saved, that He will not always save us from death - nay, that He may save us by death. And so it comes to pass that we understand how, by losing life, we may miraculously save it; and yet, on the other hand, by trying to save life, we may naturally lose it. So we come to understand this fact, how the beginning of His kingdom was full of miracles, and how, in the history of His kingdom, miracles have since ceased. The kingdom began with miracles that He might teach us that He was able to save; the miracles ceased in order that He might work a greater miracle. The lesser miracle of ruling nature ceased in order that the greatest of all miracles might perpetually be wrought - the regeneration, the redemption, and the glorification of the nature of man. And so we understand that Christ our Lord, because He is our Lord, may save us, even while we seem to perish, and to perish in His presence. He saved us of old by His agony and bloody sweat, by His cross and passion; and He will save us now, and He does save every child of His. Through agony and sweating, through cross and passion - through the agony of our long nights of spiritual darkness, through the sweat of long days of sore trouble and labor, beneath the weight of sharp and heavy crosses and sorrow, and through the bitterness of spiritual or bodily passion, does Christ our Lord still save those who cry to Him, even while He seems to sleep and not to hear them, as, in the bitterness of their souls, thinking themselves Christ-forsaken, they cry, “Our Christ, our Christ, why hast Thou forsaken us? Dost Thou sleep, Lord? Save us, or we perish.” And so you understand the peculiarity, the blest and the glorious pecu¬liarity, of our Christian prayer. You understand the meaning of those deep words of Scripture - patience and the faith of the saints. You understand how the Christian man may pray and wait, and wait and pray still. If prayer were always followed by a miraculous answer, then prayer would be easy enough; or, on the other hand, if there were no thought of an answer, then it might be possible, though not easy, to submit ourselves to the inevitable. But to pray and not to receive an answer, and yet to believe that the very not receiving is an answer; to cry, “Save, or we perish,” and to seem about to perish; to believe that in what seems perishing is really salvation; to look for the living and watchful Christ, and to see what seems only the liv¬ing and regardless Christ, and yet to believe that the time will come when, at His word, there shall be a great calm - this is the pa¬tience, this is the faith of those who wor¬ship an incarnate Lord. And so we trace the history of Christ’s Church, and so we strive to trace the history of our own lives. Comparatively easy it is to trace the Church’s history along her voyage. The Church gives time for comparing events and testing faith; and so, believing still in the presence of her living Lord, the litanies of His Church ring out, as they have ever rung, clearly and loudly, and high above the roar of the tempest and the rushing of the waters, still the prayer is beard, “Good Lord, deliver us”; and still, again and again, as the storm sweeps by, and the Church passes out into calmer waters, still comes the voice of thanksgiving: “He hath delivered us.” Even in our shorter voyage, are there none of us who can remember times when we have knelt in agony and wrestled in prayer with the Savior, who seemed to have forgotten us, when the mighty storm of temptation and the billows of calamity seemed about to destroy us, and when we have cried (oh, how men do cry in those storms of the soul, in those tempests and terrors of the heart, “Lord, save us, or we perish!” to Him to save us, and He has seemed to sleep and to refuse to save? But at the last we can remember how He did reveal Himself, not stilling the raging storm when we would have had Him still the terrible tempest, not sparing, it may be, the precious bark that we had rigged, and manned, and launched ourselves with trembling hopes and loving prayers, and watched with eyes tearless with agony, as we saw it about to sink before us; and we have been led to see and believe that the living and the loving Lord was answering even then our prayer, for the bark has, at length, entered that haven where we would be, and where the vexed waters of our voyage never awake a ripple on the calm depths of its eternal peace. This has been the experience of more than one of this great multitude that I see. And there is another experience that each one of you may have: it is when, in the troubles of your own spirit, when in the agonies of your own grief-stricken heart, when in the depths of your own repentance, when in the storms of your own fear and your own doubt, you cry to Christ the Savior - when you bring your sins as some men bring their sor¬rows, as anxious to have them removed as the others - when you cry to Christ your Savior: “Lord, save me! Save me, a sinner! Save me, an unprayerful man hitherto! Save me. an unbelieving man hitherto! Save me, not merely from the hell hereafter, but the present storm and depth of my own sins that threaten to destroy me! Save me, or I perish!” For, brethren. be sure of this, sooner or later this will be the experience of every such vexed and terrified soul - that, after he shall have endured, so long as his Lord sees good, the terrifying storm and the threatening deep that drive him in closer and closer search and seeking after his Lord, then, at last, there will appear the form of the Son of man, the form of Him who hung upon the cross, that He might for ever in the world’s history work this great and, to Him, dearest of all miracles; and, at last, He will rebuke the winds and the waves in that troubled soul, and there will be a great calm - a calm that may not last for ever, a calm that will not last for ever, for we have not yet reached the haven of perfect rest, but a calm that is a foretaste of the eternal rest. And so, praying with all our hearts to Christ our Lord, setting our will in submission to His will, pouring out our spirit in prayer to His Spirit, laying bare our hearts before His pure and loving eyes, through calm and through storm, praying still that we suffer not death in either, that we neither rot in the calm nor founder in the storm, praying still for His presence, praying still for grace to realize that presence, crying still for that deeper and yet deeper faith which is the result of more and more constant experience, crying still, “Lord, save, or we perish,” wait in patience and in faith until He shall send His last messenger in this world, His angel of death, and bid him for us and in His name rebuke for the last time the winds that have vexed us, and the waves that have terrified us, and then with Him for ever there shall be a great calm.
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William Connor Magee, Archbishop of York, was born at Cork in 1821. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was ordained in 1844. His first important charge was the Octagon Chapel at Bath in 1850. In 1864 he was made dean of Cork, and in 1868, Bishop of Peter-borough. In 1891 he was appointed to succeed Dr. William Thomson, as Archbishop of York.
Dr. Magee was pronounced by Canon Liddon the greatest preacher of his day. His speech in the House of Lords in 1869 against Irish Disestablishment was said by the highest authorities, as quoted by Lord Salisbury, to be the finest speech ever delivered, in either house of Parliament, by any man then living. His oratory was characterized by clearness and terseness of expression, while his full¬toned voice was capable of sounding every gradation of feeling. He died in 1891, three months after his enthronization in York Minster.
The Miraculous Still Of The Storm
Lord save us: we perish… Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. - Matt. 8:25, 26.
The story of this miracle reveals to us Christ entering into peril together with His Church. It records for us her faith and her prayer. It reveals to us His presence and His power. That faith has been her faith, that prayer has been her prayer, from that hour until now. In all the long perilous voyage of the Church from that hour, never has she unlearned yet her first prayer; never has she become entirely unconscious of her Lord. Sometimes with a great and a fearless faith that defied the most terrible tempests, sometimes with a little and a timid faith, that shrank from the first ripple upon the deep, but ever with her real faith have Christ’s Church and Christ’s disciples turned in the hour of their tribulation to seek their Lord. And never has that prayer been said in vain. Never from the Church at large, or from the solitary disciple in his terror, has that prayer gone up without an answer. Never has the eye of faith sought, and sought in vain, the Savior. Ever has the praying Church or the praying disciple found the still present Christ; and we believe that it is so now. We believe that Christ our Lord is here in the midst of us now, and that our eye of faith may see Him, and our prayer of faith may reach Him. And if this be so now - if Christ’s presence be a real fact amongst us now, and our prayer have really a might to reveal that presence - then, above all things, it concerns us, that we understand the nature of that prayer, and the manner of that presence, that we understand what it is we mean, and what will come of it when we say: “Lord, save us, or we perish.”
We ask you, then, tonight, brethren, to consider these two things: the meaning of the Church’s prayer; the manner of her Lord’s presence. Now, when we use these words: “Lord, save: we perish,” we are really rehearsing two articles of our belief. We are declaring, first of all, that we believe there is a Lord - that in the visible world there is an invisible God with His overruling, and controlling, and appointing will; and, in the next place, we believe that this God is our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first of these, we Christians agree with every religion that ever has been. In the second, we differ from all other religions. When we say that above nature there is a will and a personality, we say what every religion says. Religion is nothing else than the belief in the supernatural, in something above nature, in a person, in a will; and prayer is nothing but the speech of our spirit to that will, and the submission of our will to it. Prayer is the effort of the spirit of man to rise above the visible up to the region of the invisible and the personal, there to speak out his care or his need. There can, therefore, be no prayer without this element of religion; and there can be no religion without this fact of prayer. Without it, you have philosophy, you may have sentiment; but you cannot have a real, practical, everyday religion. And, therefore, all religions have believed in a God or gods, a Lord or lords. Turk, Jew, heathen, in like case, would have said to some lord or other: “Save, or we perish.” But the Christian believes something more. He believes that his Lord has come down amongst men; that He has taken to him human flesh, and lived a human life, and died, and risen again, for his salvation. He worships not only a lord, but the incarnate Lord; and so the Church speaks her twofold faith in her great hymn from the first to Christ as God: “We praise Thee, 0 God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord’” - Thee, and none other, to be the God, and Thee to be the Lord, and Ruler, and Master of all things. You see, then, that there is something different in Christian prayer from all other prayer and worship, and that the difference consists in this: that it is distinctively and avowedly the prayer to an incarnate Christ.
Now, if there be this difference between this prayer and all other prayer, then there must be a corresponding difference in the feelings and in the practical results of such a religion; and I am about to ask you now to follow me while I endeavor to trace for you this difference between Christian prayer and all other prayer. It seems as if the story in the gospel of this miracle exactly sets out this difference - exactly shows us the distinctive nature of Christian prayer. The story, you ob¬serve, divides itself, naturally, into three parts. Them is, first of all, the voyage before the storm; there is, then, the storm; and there is, then, the miraculous stilling of the storm. Now, you observe that in each of these three parts, we have one thing in common. We have man, in some way or other, encountering, or encountered by, the outward and visible world. The third of these - the stilling of the storm - differs from the other two in this, that it is miraculous and supernatural. Now, let us, for a moment, leave out this third part. There are some, you know, who say, that we should always leave it out, and be better without it. Let us leave out, then, this third or miraculous part of the story; and let us contrast the first and the second parts. And what have we got? We have got a most remarkable contrast between the two scenes. What is it we see in the first scene? We see a man subduing nature. It was by the knowledge of the elements and the laws of nature, that man learned thus to sail upon the deep; and in that one fact you have represented for you the whole of the material progress of humanity - all the triumphs of science, all the glory and the beauty of art, all that marvelous mastery that man obtains by his inventive and creative will over the secret powers of nature, as he unlocks them one by one, and compels her to tell him her deepest mysteries - all that man has done as he has advanced from horizon to horizon of discovery, finding still new worlds to conquer, until we stand amazed at our own progress and the infinity of it, and we say of man: “What manner of being is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” Yes, there is the man the lord of nature. There is nothing supernatural there. All is natural, all is orderly. Man is lord and master. Nature is man ‘a servant; and, therefore. there seems no room, there seems no need for prayer. There is nothing, seemingly, there to be had for the asking; there is everything, seemingly, there to be had for working. Man is to be seen walking in the garden of his own planting and his own fencing; and he reaches out hands to unforbidden fruits of knowledge; and he believes that at last he shall gather even of the tree of life. He is a god unto himself, and he sees no need for prayer.
And now we turn to the second scene, and what have we there? We have the direct contrast with this scene. We have there, not man subduing nature, but nature subduing man. We have the storm in which the elements are man‘s masters and not his servants; and he that one minute before was the boasting lord of nature is its toy and its sport. The very foam upon the crest of those billows is not more helpless in the grasp of the elements than the lord and the king of them; and they toss him to and fro, as the wind drives the stubble in the autumn. This is the terrible aspect of nature. This is nature in her might, and in her majesty, and in her pitilessness, and in her capriciousness - when nature seems everything, and man, in her awful presence, dwindles and dwarfs into very nothingness - when man, in the presence of the vastness of her solitude, and the might of her storms, and the terror of her earthquakes, seems no more before her, with his little cares and his sorrows, than the wee bubbles upon the head of the cataract. This is nature as she masters man. Is it, then, any wonder that, in the early struggles of mankind with this terrible visible power of the creature, men came to worship the creature - that they ascribed to every one of these powers a divinity, that in the voice of the wind, and in the roar of the sea, and in the raging of the fire, they saw the signs of a divine presence, and they said to these elements: “Spare us,” or “Save us, or else we perish” I And so all creation became peopled with gods - cruel gods, capricious gods, vengeful gods, gods whom men bribed with blood, gods whom, even while they bribed them, they could not love, and did not believe that they loved them. This is the first and most terrible form of creature worship; this was the idolatry of the heathen. But mark this, that such a worship as this could not continue forever, could not continue long, because it is the worship of ignorance; it is the belief in the supernatural, only because it confuses the unknown with the supernatural. Ever as science advances must this faith melt away. Ever must the domain of the known push itself forward into the domain of the unknown. Ever does the man of science take one by one the gods of the man of superstition and break them upon their pedestals, and tell him this; “What you worship is no god. What you worship is no lord. It is not your lord. It is a servant of yours; and I class it in this or that rank of your servants.” So, one by one, like ghosts and phantoms in the dawning of the day - one by one, the phantoms of gods that haunted the night of the old world vanish before the dawn of knowledge. But then it is a terrible day¬light that breaks on men - a blank, dreary world in which men have no sight of the invisible, no sense of the supernatural. It is that last and most terrible aspect of nature, when she appears, not as many gods, or many wills, but as the great soulless piece of mechanism, of which we are only part - a terrible machinery in which we are, somehow or other, involved, and in the presence of which the sense of our free-will leaves us. The pith, and the manhood, and the vigor of men, and the beauty and the freedom of their life die out of them as they stand appalled before this passionless, this terrible, this awful face of a soulless world. This is the last and the most terrible form of creature worship. And mark this, that between these two aspects of nature, if you have no assured faith, there is no logical resting-place. Without the act of faith, you must take your choice between the superstition of ignorance or the atheism of knowledge.
And now we have seen these, we turn to the third portion of our story; and what is that we see there? We see, again,, in this world of men, the miraculous and the supernatural. We hear a prayer, and we see a miracle. In the face of the might of nature and the terrors of her elements there arises up a Man in answer to man’s cry - there is heard a Man’s voice, which is yet the voice of God; and it rebukes the winds and the sea, and the elements of nature own their real Lord; and immediately there is a great calm. What is it, then, that we see? We see a miracle, and a miracle that answers to prayer; we see the living spirits of living men, in the hour of their agony and their distress, appealing from nature to the God of nature; and we have recorded the answer of God to man’s prayer. The answer is, that God is Lord both of man and of nature; and we say, therefore, that the miracle, and the miracle alone, sufficiently justifies the prayer. We say that the reason why men may pray is, and can only be, that they know and believe, that there is a will which rules the visible. If you have not this belief, then believe us that all prayer, whatever men may say about it, is an unreality and a miserable mockery. To what am I to pray if I see no living God to pray to? Am I to pray to a law? Am I to pray to a system? Am I to pray to the winds, or to the waves, as men prayed of old? Am I to pray for physical blessings and deliverances? Men tell us we are not to pray, or to give thanks, concerning the rain or fruitful seasons, for that science has told us that the supernatural has no place there. Am I to pray then (for men do tell me that I may pray) only for spiritual and for moral gifts? Am I to pray only to be made wise, and good, and pure, and true, and holy? Ah! science is beginning to meet us there, too; for she is telling us, and telling us loudly, and telling us shamelessly, that here, too, there is no room, so far as she can tell, for prayer, as our mind is but a part of our body, and that our spiritual condition is a necessary result of our past history and of our present temperament - that we are what we are by virtue of birth and education, and country, and clime, and other things over which we have no control. And so the very spirit of man, all that is left of the invisible, vanishes before the approach of science. The knife of the anatomist lays bare, as he tells you, the secrets of man’s being; and he finds no soul - he finds only the gray matter of the brain and the white threads of the nerves; and this is all that is left. Then, if we are not to pray, may we at least praise? Men say that if it is a folly to pray, at least it is a wisdom to praise; and they tell us this is the sentimental theory of the modern gospel. They tell you: “You may not pray, - prayer has no place in our system, - but you may praise; you may lift up your heart in hymns of joy and gratitude to the great Father of your being; you may have festival and flower-crowned processions in honor of the Supreme Being; yes, you may in fine weather, when you are sailing over summer seas, and the pleasant summer wind is filling’ the sails of your bark, and is wafting sweet odors from the flower-crowned shores along which youth, and hope, and joy are passing - then you may lift up your hearts in thanks to the Father that gave all these, if you do not forget it. But how is it in foul weather? How is it when the sky above us darkens, and the white crests of the waves beneath us are swelling sharp and fierce, and the jagged edges of the rocks are projecting for our shipwreck, and the wild waste of the waters is yawning below us, and we tremble and shudder at their depths, and the wild wind blows our prayer back into our bosoms - is that the time to sing sentimental hymns to our great supreme Father and Giver of all good? It is a time (thank God, thank Christ, for this) when the Christian, when the disciple of Christ, may hold fast his faith and say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”; but it is not a time when the deist has breath to sing his hymns to the supreme Author of his being. No, we believe that there is a miracle that justifies, and alone justifies prayer. We know that there are those (and they are good and wise men, many of them) who contrive nice adjustments and philosophical explanations how prayer may be reconciled with universal law. We do not greatly care for these. They may be right; they may be wrong. In some future state and higher condition of our being we may know how far they are true, how far they are false; but, meanwhile, we need not be too nervously anxious to make room for almighty God to work His own will in His own world. We believe in the miracle of creation; we believe that there was once a voice that said, “Let there be light, and there was light”; we believe that at the sound of that voice the universe leapt into life; and we believe in the miracle of the Incarnation, when God took human flesh and dwelt amongst men; we believe in the miracle of the descent of the Spirit of God, when, with the miraculous sound of the rushing wind and the miraculous gleam of the fire, God once more came down to dwell amongst men; we believe in the miracles that are written for us in this Book, were they ten times as many as they are; we believe that the sea has stood on one side like a wall, and that the waters have gushed forth from the rock; we believe that bread has been rained from heaven; we believe that a touch has awakened the dead - we believe all this; and, because we believe it, we believe the voice when it says to us, “Pray”; and because we hear that voice still amongst us, and because we know it to be the same voice, we say, as we hear it, “Lord, save, or we perish.”
But still, in the last place, it may be said to us: If you do believe that there is this power of miracle amongst you still, and that it will answer to your prayer, why is it that we do not see more miracles than we do? Why is not the world filled with strange miracles every day, considering the infinite number of men‘s needs, and the infinite number of human prayers? My brethren, it does seem to me that if we were merely deists, and did not believe in Christ, it would be difficult for us to answer this objection. The spirit of man has, however (thanks be to God for it), in all ages been deeper and truer in its instincts than his mere logical power. Even the deist (and we thankfully acknowledge it), though inconsistently and illogically, yet really and truly prays. For us Christians there is not any difficulty. There is that difference in our prayer of which I spoke. To whom is it that we pray? Not merely to the invisible Lord or Creator of the past, but to the incarnate Lord of the present. We believe that Christ our Lord, to whom we pray. took flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we believe that He did so that He might work the greatest of all miracles - the salvation of the souls of men; and we believe that He wrought it by dying and by living again. We believe that He established in the world this great and miraculous law, that it is possible out of death to bring life - nay, that death is the way to life. If this be so, that by His death life was purchased for us, then He teaches us that there is another life than this, and that there is another death and a deeper death than that we fear; and He tells us, it may be, that even by dying we shall be saved, that He will not always save us from death - nay, that He may save us by death. And so it comes to pass that we understand how, by losing life, we may miraculously save it; and yet, on the other hand, by trying to save life, we may naturally lose it. So we come to understand this fact, how the beginning of His kingdom was full of miracles, and how, in the history of His kingdom, miracles have since ceased. The kingdom began with miracles that He might teach us that He was able to save; the miracles ceased in order that He might work a greater miracle. The lesser miracle of ruling nature ceased in order that the greatest of all miracles might perpetually be wrought - the regeneration, the redemption, and the glorification of the nature of man. And so we understand that Christ our Lord, because He is our Lord, may save us, even while we seem to perish, and to perish in His presence. He saved us of old by His agony and bloody sweat, by His cross and passion; and He will save us now, and He does save every child of His. Through agony and sweating, through cross and passion - through the agony of our long nights of spiritual darkness, through the sweat of long days of sore trouble and labor, beneath the weight of sharp and heavy crosses and sorrow, and through the bitterness of spiritual or bodily passion, does Christ our Lord still save those who cry to Him, even while He seems to sleep and not to hear them, as, in the bitterness of their souls, thinking themselves Christ-forsaken, they cry, “Our Christ, our Christ, why hast Thou forsaken us? Dost Thou sleep, Lord? Save us, or we perish.” And so you understand the peculiarity, the blest and the glorious pecu¬liarity, of our Christian prayer. You understand the meaning of those deep words of Scripture - patience and the faith of the saints. You understand how the Christian man may pray and wait, and wait and pray still. If prayer were always followed by a miraculous answer, then prayer would be easy enough; or, on the other hand, if there were no thought of an answer, then it might be possible, though not easy, to submit ourselves to the inevitable. But to pray and not to receive an answer, and yet to believe that the very not receiving is an answer; to cry, “Save, or we perish,” and to seem about to perish; to believe that in what seems perishing is really salvation; to look for the living and watchful Christ, and to see what seems only the liv¬ing and regardless Christ, and yet to believe that the time will come when, at His word, there shall be a great calm - this is the pa¬tience, this is the faith of those who wor¬ship an incarnate Lord. And so we trace the history of Christ’s Church, and so we strive to trace the history of our own lives. Comparatively easy it is to trace the Church’s history along her voyage. The Church gives time for comparing events and testing faith; and so, believing still in the presence of her living Lord, the litanies of His Church ring out, as they have ever rung, clearly and loudly, and high above the roar of the tempest and the rushing of the waters, still the prayer is beard, “Good Lord, deliver us”; and still, again and again, as the storm sweeps by, and the Church passes out into calmer waters, still comes the voice of thanksgiving: “He hath delivered us.” Even in our shorter voyage, are there none of us who can remember times when we have knelt in agony and wrestled in prayer with the Savior, who seemed to have forgotten us, when the mighty storm of temptation and the billows of calamity seemed about to destroy us, and when we have cried (oh, how men do cry in those storms of the soul, in those tempests and terrors of the heart, “Lord, save us, or we perish!” to Him to save us, and He has seemed to sleep and to refuse to save? But at the last we can remember how He did reveal Himself, not stilling the raging storm when we would have had Him still the terrible tempest, not sparing, it may be, the precious bark that we had rigged, and manned, and launched ourselves with trembling hopes and loving prayers, and watched with eyes tearless with agony, as we saw it about to sink before us; and we have been led to see and believe that the living and the loving Lord was answering even then our prayer, for the bark has, at length, entered that haven where we would be, and where the vexed waters of our voyage never awake a ripple on the calm depths of its eternal peace. This has been the experience of more than one of this great multitude that I see. And there is another experience that each one of you may have: it is when, in the troubles of your own spirit, when in the agonies of your own grief-stricken heart, when in the depths of your own repentance, when in the storms of your own fear and your own doubt, you cry to Christ the Savior - when you bring your sins as some men bring their sor¬rows, as anxious to have them removed as the others - when you cry to Christ your Savior: “Lord, save me! Save me, a sinner! Save me, an unprayerful man hitherto! Save me. an unbelieving man hitherto! Save me, not merely from the hell hereafter, but the present storm and depth of my own sins that threaten to destroy me! Save me, or I perish!” For, brethren. be sure of this, sooner or later this will be the experience of every such vexed and terrified soul - that, after he shall have endured, so long as his Lord sees good, the terrifying storm and the threatening deep that drive him in closer and closer search and seeking after his Lord, then, at last, there will appear the form of the Son of man, the form of Him who hung upon the cross, that He might for ever in the world’s history work this great and, to Him, dearest of all miracles; and, at last, He will rebuke the winds and the waves in that troubled soul, and there will be a great calm - a calm that may not last for ever, a calm that will not last for ever, for we have not yet reached the haven of perfect rest, but a calm that is a foretaste of the eternal rest. And so, praying with all our hearts to Christ our Lord, setting our will in submission to His will, pouring out our spirit in prayer to His Spirit, laying bare our hearts before His pure and loving eyes, through calm and through storm, praying still that we suffer not death in either, that we neither rot in the calm nor founder in the storm, praying still for His presence, praying still for grace to realize that presence, crying still for that deeper and yet deeper faith which is the result of more and more constant experience, crying still, “Lord, save, or we perish,” wait in patience and in faith until He shall send His last messenger in this world, His angel of death, and bid him for us and in His name rebuke for the last time the winds that have vexed us, and the waves that have terrified us, and then with Him for ever there shall be a great calm.
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